


In the Dark

by spraycansoul



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow series - Gemma T. Leslie
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Clingy!Baz, Clueless!Simon, Cussing, Fights, Fluff and Angst, Kissing, M/M, Super angsty, Swearing, a lotta that stuff, angst first, but the fluff comes later, oh yeah, that stuff, um
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-16 17:43:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7277671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spraycansoul/pseuds/spraycansoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fighting with Baz used to be so easy, like second nature to him, but now it was exhausting. Simon takes one last look at Baz, still in his burgundy suit from earlier, brooding, beautiful, eyes both cloudy and sharp, and heat in his hands is gone—he can’t do it. “I can’t do this,” he says out loud, voice shaky. He shakes his head, grabs a coat on the rack, and reaches for the doorknob.</p>
<p>In which Simon and Baz have a huge fight, mostly because Simon doesn't answer his phone. V angsty, but ends w/ fluff!!!</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write some angst because I never write angst but it ended with some fluff because I am Weak™ and also my babies deserve to be happy ;~;

Simon Snow does not answer his phone.

It takes him a couple minutes to return a text, and most of the calls he receives go straight to voicemail. He doesn’t do it out of spite, or because he’s particularly antsy about phone calls. He’s not the kind of person to screen calls or texts. He just never hears when his phone is ringing, nor can he feel it when it’s vibrating. On the rare occasion that he _is_ aware of the catchy tune his phone plays when someone calls, he picks it up, as anyone else would. But usually, he is not.

But Baz doesn’t know this. Instead, Baz is infuriated, because he had been trying to reach Simon all night to no avail. 

He’s at home now, alone in his and Simon’s flat, but four hours ago, he was at an art exhibit uptown. His father is a very generous benefactor of the city museum, always has been, and he was expected to be there, as usual. He’d been planning this night with Simon for weeks—even helped him pick out a suit for the event—and he made sure that Simon remembered when and where it would be before he left that morning.

“Yeah, I got it, Bazzy,” Simon had mumbled then, his eyes still droopy and drowsy as he followed him out to the front door. He was smiling, though, and so was Baz. “I’ll see you there.”

But he didn’t, because he never showed up, and now, thirty-two missed calls and forty-nine text messages later, Baz still had no idea why.

His anxiety was eating him alive. It was bad at the exhibit, and it only got worse when he arrived home to find that the flat was empty. Simon could be anywhere, for all he knew—which was nothing, to be frank. He could be with Penny. Or not. He could be with some other guy. He could be stranded somewhere with no money and no way to get home. He could have been in a horrible accident.

He could be dead.

Just then, as he’s about to completely lose his mind, Baz sees the front door crack open from his spot on the couch. In steps Simon, tired eyes, disheveled hair and all, but looking handsome nonetheless in his periwinkle pinstripe suit and black-and-white bowtie. 

Baz hated him, but he hated himself more for choosing clothes that made him look so good when all he wanted to do was hate him.

“Where the fuck have you been, Snow?” he demands, getting up from the couch. He feels his frustration building, can already feel it in his throat, in his fingertips. It’s familiar—it feels like all the other times Simon drove him crazy at Watford—but also unfamiliar, because the circumstances are completely different. He wants to be with him, not without. "You were supposed to meet me at the museum _four fucking hours_ ago!”

Simon shrinks in the doorway, his eyes glassy already, looking up at Baz through his eyelashes. He shakes a hand through his hair, like he does when he’s nervous, and lets out a small sigh. “I was with Penny, Baz. She and Micah had this huge fight and I couldn’t just leave her—”

Baz scoffs to cut him off, throwing his hands up in the air to see if that can help the heat in his fingers. “So you decided to leave me instead?” He snaps, laughing bitterly, turning away from Simon, because he can’t look at his face and stay mad at him at the same time.

“It’s not like that,” Simon says, stepping forward finally, reaching for him. Baz takes a step back, just out of his reach.

“Then what’s it like, Snow?” Baz questions coldly. “Tell me what it’s like. Because I’ll tell you what it’s been like for me. It’s like standing alone at a snooty as fuck party, mingling pointlessly with snooty as fuck people I couldn’t care less about, when I could have been having the fucking time of my life with you. It’s calling you every ten seconds even though I know you wouldn’t pick up, just wondering where you could be. It’s sitting on this couch, wide-eyed and worried that I’ll never see you again, that something terrible has happened and you can never come home. So enlighten me, Snow.” He’s looking straight at Simon now, challenging him. “What the fuck could it be like?”

From his spot in the foyer, Simon can see the storm brewing in Baz’s eyes. His grey eyes, usually warm and inviting, had gone icy. He’s seen him mad, of course he has, but never like this. Never like it was really his fault.

And he can’t help it, but his first instinct to Baz getting mad was always to get mad, too. HIs words had hurt him in a way they never had before, but fighting with him was familiar, and he wanted to fight back. He can feel the blood rushing to his head, can feel his ears turning red, and he grips his hair in his hands, as if that would stop it. “Aleister Crowley, Baz, can you _lay off_ me for one fucking second? You don’t _own_ me! You don’t have to know where I am every second of every goddamn day! I spend one night. _One. Night._ With Penny. Who desperately needed me. And you completely lose your shit because in all the chaos I forgot to tell you where I was! Why can't you understand that the world doesn't revolve around you?!” Simon regrets the words as soon as they're out, but he can't back down now.

_Wrong answer._ Simon's words had hurt Baz very badly, but he wasn't about to show him. “It’s not just tonight, though! You do this every single time. It takes you forever and a day to return a call at any given moment. You could have at least texted me back! It would have taken two seconds, Snow, two goddamn seconds to get me out of the dark!”

His words hang in the silence for what feels like forever. The tension is a thick wall between them. It's the fucking Great Wall of China, at this point. Simon closes his eyes, exhaling, trying to find the words that might fix this. Trying to find the resolve to say them. He wants to say sorry, he just wants to hold him, but his pride won't allow it.

Fighting with Baz used to be so easy, like second nature to him, but now it was exhausting. Simon takes one last look at Baz, still in his burgundy suit from earlier, brooding, beautiful, eyes both cloudy and sharp somehow, and heat in his hands is gone—he can’t do it. “I can’t do this,” he says out loud, voice shaky. He shakes his head, grabs a coat on the rack, and reaches for the doorknob.

It takes about two seconds for Baz to deflate. He can’t do it, either. Not now. Not ever. The storm in his eyes has receded. “Where are you going?” he barely manages, and it comes out almost as a whisper.

Simon doesn’t look back. “Out,” he says, before he can regret it. Before Baz can stop him.

He realizes too late that he’d taken Baz’s coat. He smells cedar-and-bergamot as he steps out into the cold and misses him instantly.

* * *

Later, in the dark, Simon collapses next to Baz, who is sitting up on their bed, staring straight at the wall. He buries his head in his hands, and when he speaks, his voice is soft. Tired. “I dressed up for you. I was going to go, don’t you get that? I _wanted_ so badly to go.” He releases a shaky breath, still not looking up. “But you should have seen her, Baz. You should have _heard_ her. She sounded—God, Baz, she sounded broken. And I needed to help her fix it. And I’m sorry that I didn’t call and I’m sorry that I got there an hour too late and I only saw the janitor, but please, Baz, I need you to talk to me. Please.” His voice breaks on the last syllable, and his eyes are starting to brew up another storm of their own.

On the other side of the bed, Baz eases back onto his pillow, letting out a desperate sigh of relief. Seeing Simon walk out earlier had caused every last drop of anger to drain out of him. For a second time that night, he had no idea where Simon was, and worse, if he would ever come back, especially after all he’d said. He was surprised to find that for the first time in ten years, Simon had finally conceded, but was even more surprised to find that after everything, he still felt like he had lost.

Now that Simon was beside him, close enough for Baz to feel his warmth at his side, he couldn’t hate him—not ever, quite frankly—but now especially, after finding out that he _had_ shown up, after all. He was just late, and Baz hadn’t been there to see him.

He feels his chest tighten as the emotions wash through him, one by one: pain, and then guilt, and then regret. And then and then and then. 

“I’m sorry,” Baz whispers, just as he finally shatters. His eyes close just as the first tears slip out. He’s thankful it’s dark—he doesn’t want Simon to see. He takes in a shaky breath, exhales. “I’m so, so sorry, Simon. I just, I can't—I can’t lose you. _Fuck._ ” He fists his hair, pulling tightly, breathing heavily.

And then finally, _finally_ , Simon takes Baz’s hands, gently easing them out of his hair and pressing them onto his face. Baz can feel the wetness on Simon’s cheeks, and tries to brush it away with his thumbs. He feels terrible that he was the cause, but he’d been craving Simon’s heat all night, and now that he finally had it enveloping his hands, _Simon-Baz-Simon_ , he couldn’t help but feel a little better.

Simon leans in, wrapping his arms around him and pressing his face to his chest. Baz holds Simon close, and they both relax at the contact, breathing each other in. The walls they’d built up in the past hour have fallen down at last. The cedar-and-bergamot is everywhere around Simon now, filling his senses and clearing his mind. _Crowley_ , this was all he’s wanted to do since he’d first stepped into the flat, and since he’d last stepped out. “I’m sorry, love. I’ll answer your calls, I promise. Just please stop hating me.” 

Baz feels a stab in his chest from Simon’s words. He feels the intense need to prove him wrong—almost as intense as the not-hate filling him up in that moment. Baz takes Simon’s face in his hands again, making him look up at him, and there, _there_ are those beautiful blue eyes that he knew, back to the warm color of the sky in summer. “I could never hate you, Simon,” he tells him solemnly. He brushes his lips against Simon’s, as if asking for permission, and Simon grants it immediately. Their lips move in sync, slowly, softly. Simon tastes like cherries and coffee—he probably went to the cafe to clear his mind when he left. Baz feels Simon’s hands move on his back, up and down. He lets his fingers move up and tangle in Simon’s hair, needing the proximity desperately. “I could never hate you,” he says again into his lips, so he doesn’t forget. “Not even for a second."

For a moment, it’s just that, needing each other, feeling each other’s warmth. Not fighting. They both slowly ease down onto the bed, lying down on their sides, lips still attached. When Simon pulls away, he lets himself stare at the beautiful boy in front of him.

How had he ever wanted to fight this boy before?

He lets his head sink in his pillow, feeling the exhaustion finally settle in. His eyes flutter closed for a second, and he opens him as soon as he realized, but Baz noticed, too.

“You’re tired,” he murmurs, kissing the mole on Simon’s jaw. “Go to sleep, Si.”

Simon nods, feeling his eyelids droop shut involuntarily. “Night, Bazzy,” he whispers, their breaths mingling. “I love you.”

Baz lets his eyes close, too, draping an arm around Simon to pull him close and feeling the warm rush in his chest when he hears Simon’s words. “I love you, too,” he tells him.

And then, before just before the weariness knocks him out cold, he hears Simon mumble: “Let’s never fight again.”

The last thing Baz thinks is this: _He loves me._

_And he likes this better than fighting._


End file.
